How to install SATA driver (AHCI) for Windows Xp Home Guest

[Ranguno]

Hello,

to speed up the Guest I want to switch my two disks from IDE to SATA according to the following instructions:

(1) Shut down the Guest
(2) Add a SATA controller without a device
(3) Start the Guest, Xp will ask for the SATA driver
(4) Install the SATA driver
(5) Shut down the Guest
(6) Remove the two disks from the IDE controller and connect it to the SATA controller
(7) Start the Guest

To (4): The manual 6.0.0 says in chapter 6.1. (Hard Disk Controllers):

Oracle VM VirtualBox recommends the Intel Matrix Storage drivers, which can be downloaded from http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product ... uctID=2101

This site shows a table with two links in two lines, where each linked site provides a "Get Started" button. However, these buttons refer to the current system, and since I refuse to go online by Xp, it's Win 8.1. Finally I found a site "Intel® Matrix Storage Manager" with a previously released version referring to Windows Xp.

My questions are:

(a) Where can I get the latest version?
(b) Which of the downloads should I use (IATA89CD.exe, f6flpy3289.zip, f6flpy6489.zip, IATA89ENU.exe)? I think it's f6flpy3289.zip.

[andyp73]

to speed up the Guest I want to switch my two disks from IDE to SATA according to the following instructions

The disk controllers are emulated and so the difference in performance that you would see from changing it will probably be fairly minimal. The defaults in the templates are there as they provide the most common controller type used by that operating system.

(2) Add a SATA controller without a device
(3) Start the Guest, Xp will ask for the SATA driver
(4) Install the SATA driver
(5) Shut down the Guest
(6) Remove the two disks from the IDE controller and connect it to the SATA controller
(7) Start the Guest

Windows XP was always picky about hardware changes and as I recall also handled disk controllers differently if they were to be booted from rather than just an add on controller for extra disks. Don't be surprised if this doesn't work as you expect!

Which of the downloads should I use (IATA89CD.exe, f6flpy3289.zip, f6flpy6489.zip, IATA89ENU.exe)? I think it's f6flpy3289.zip.

The contents of f6flpy3289.zip would be unpacked to a floppy disk and given to the Windows XP installer during the text mode portion of the installation (at the prompt that said something along the lines of "Press F6 to install additional drivers". More likely, if you have Windows XP already installed then you would want some of the contents of the .exe file.

-Andy.

[socratis]

Here's my theologians proven, scientists tested, and politicians verified explanation:

• f6flpy3289.zip: Floppy, 32-bit, version 8.9.
• f6flpy6489.zip: Floppy, 64-bit, version 8.9.
• IATA89ENU.exe: English-only, 32/64-bit, version 8.9, all OSes.
• IATA89CD.exe: CD-image, 32/64-bit, version 8.9, all OSes, all languages.

The first two are used during installation, the other two after you've already installed WinXP, as Andy said.

[Ranguno]

@andyp73 @ socratis: You're right, the driver installation worked by an ".exe" file, manually executed, Xp didn't ask. I chose "IATA89ENU.exe".

And indeed, the speed gain is slight (4,8 %), I copied 1 GB (206 files) in 59 seconds by SATA and in 62 seconds by IDE.

I don't think it's worth the risk of using SATA which I assume. Or would you say there is no additional risk?

[mpack]

There can be a lot of complications related to getting the SATA drivers working (booting, reactivation), but if they are already working then I'm not aware of any additional risk.

[Ranguno]

@mpack: Including defragmentation and zeroing out by "sdelete.exe -z"?

[mpack]

The SATA controller has no influence on either of those.

[JohnFlow32934]

As Intel keeps changing (and thereby breaking) URLs let me add https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... l%20matrix which worked for me as of today.